Gary Baseman's retrospective "The Door is Always Open" at the Skirball in LA opened recently to massive crowds in a huge celebratory opening party. The exhibition is so complex and personal, delving into Baseman's background, family history, and all the layers of prolific work that he has done over the years. After the opening festivities winded down, I caught up with Baseman for an interview. We discussed the underlying meaning to some of the components of the show and how it felt for him, coming from such an honest personal perspective in putting this massive show together.

Kristin: First of all, congrats on such a phenomenal retrospective with "The Door is Always Open" at the Skirball. The whole show was such an in depth exploration of your work and really a celebration of the work you've done over the last several decades. It was such an involved event, too, with so many different things going on. How did that feel for you- the experience of the opening and winding down afterwards? It was pretty epic.

Gary: Well even when I give a tour of the exhibition or look at just the exhibition itself, it has so many layers to it. So because I was determined when I put together the exhibition to not have a traditional retrospective, but that I was trying to create this kind of art installation- this kind of environment to engage the viewer and in a way disarm them. I wanted to bring them in to the space, to make them part of it and for them to be able to interact with the art differently than just a viewer looking at a painting behind glass. That became such an overwhelming process, so in some ways when I first give a tour of the exhibition itself, you get caught up in the concept. And then because each room represents a theme in my work, you almost end up removing the actual exhibitions themselves.

Each piece of art represents a specific exhibition or an event and then has a story in its own right.

So again, there are so many layers of not just the work as art, it's the work also as history, as memory and heritage and so you're dealing with a sense of family. For me it was a way to honor my family my parents for one by having their furniture, their original furniture, in there.

K: Wow, I didn't realize that was their original furniture you used. I was wondering about it.

G: Yeah, this is a very deep emotional exhibition. The furniture in the Living Room, the Dining Room and the Bedroom was my parents furniture. My mom passed away in October and at first I was going to mainly use relatives' furniture to capture that era, cause its not only my family but its also the Fairfax District that I grew up in. But when my mom passed away in October I made the decision to use family furniture. My brothers and sisters said it was cool and so I moved my parents' furniture that they had left in their home of 48 years and used it in the exhibition.

K: That's incredible. I'm sorry to hear about your mother. I imagine you were already well into working on this show when she passed, so was this process kind of therapeutic?

G: Well the process already started when my father passed away three years ago.... ~continue reading

When I was born my parents were older, when they had me, so they were almost more like grandparents in a way. But then also when my father passed I became overwhelmed with needing to be the keeper of his story. In the sense that I've had these characters called these Magi Spirits, that are the keeper of one's memories, that I had in an exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of Art. Then with Toby's Secret Society and these Magi, so it became for me about that after my dad passed. He had this serious history that I never saw firsthand because I was born and raised in LA. It all happened twenty years before I was alive, so for me it was knowing some of his story and having to search to discover new secrets about my family and finding a way to tell that tale in a way that I'm also talking about my art and my career.

Then also being able to not just create this environment but having to partner up with others like Astek who's doing the wallpaper, and my friend Rebecca Sevrin, who did the table cloths and the bedspread and slipcovers and Lori Meeker who did the pillows- all these little elements that fill the space with a sense of meaning of character. But also dealing with growing up as a son of survivors and being a first generation American and dealing with what the "American dream" means to me and having a father who was always telling me about that American Dream. Growing up not studying fine art or any kind of art.

I was a communications major so my background is in free speech and the first amendment and what does that represent as an artist? For me that's pretty much everything- the best way to defend the first amendment is by participating in it. And with all those elements there's probably more in the show dealing with the theme of growing up in Southern California, in LA with Disneyland and cartoons and being inspired. Also, pop culture and the things I collect, but then we're dealing with the opening party and trying to make that an art experience in its own right, you know? So, for me, it was wanting to create an environment that's exciting and to give a certain homage to my other art performances like Giggle and Pop or La Noche- to bring in elements of that- so we made sure we had games made sure we had Wild Girls and ChouChous and some new characters. Then we had painting live with Nightmare and the Cat, which I've been doing for the past couple of years and then bringing Shepard in to deejay and doing a special print with him in honor of my dad. There's a lot of things. And then how I wanted to interact with the crowd: I created my own little type of presence on how I engaged people and how I offered people a memory piece when they greeted me.

K: That was the key, right?

G: Yes.

K: Tell me about that- as I understand there's a bit of a story there. I heard it was the key to your grandmother's place- is that true?

G: No, it was my folks'. They were like grandparents. This is the key that actually belongs to the closet in my parents' home. I had Julie from Pretty in Plastic cast that key and then rework it to put a Toby head on it because Toby is the keeper of your secrets and this is the closet that I found this book about my fathers town that used to be in Poland but now it's part of the Ukraine. My parents were Holocaust survivors so these towns were completely mass murdered in the war, everyone was killed except for maybe a hundred people and my dad fled into the woods and became a Partisan. In that closet is not only where we kept the family albums but also there were interesting items and I would play in there as a kid. That's where, in the last few months, I found the book about my father's town. Many people wrote the story about it and there were pages in that book that talked about my father directly. I wanted to cast that key and I wasn't putting it in a gift bag where if just cause people came they would get a key. In fact, I had friends who were trying to just grab keys and I told them to put them back because the way I wanted people to receive keys was by engaging with me, by greeting me. Then I would tell them the story and invite them into my home and offer them a key to my house. So that's what I did. Unfortunately, there were thousands of people there- I had hundreds and hundreds of friends that couldn't even reach me, there were a lot of friends I didn't even realize were there.

K: Well it was huge. That's really a beautiful way to tie in drawing people into the world you were creating. I feel like a lot of retrospectives at museums generally just do a survey of an artist's work over the years but yours really goes back into your background. As I understand it, the title of the show "The Door is Always Open" was something your father used to say. And so it's the telling of your life and your history, and not just the work you've made and the things you've done and what's inspired you, but also where you come from, which is really beautiful.

G: Right, and in fact that's also what we did with the Rizzoli book, which they published for the exhibition even before the show was done. We spent six months, which should have been a year, but we only had six months to produce that book. So the book is like a house, where each chapter represents a room and each room represents a theme, and wrapping each chapter, not just with art, but with family photos. The interesting ones for me were the ones that were a little absurd and playful and were mixed with the art to kind of create the environment of each room.

K: All the different rooms were so interesting. I know they're each about different facets of your life and work, but was there one that you felt particularly reflected in, or one that's a favorite?

G: No. I wish I could tell you there was one. We're still working on the backyard where I'm trying to add more piñatas to make it richer. But each one has a different kind of goal in how I want people to respond, you know? There's a kind of beauty to the dining room in that the room itself has wallpaper that is based on the actual wallpaper of my parents' house. The dining room and the dining room table is all my parents', so there's a certain kind of feeling in there. But the study is personally dealing with a new body of work and that's where I completed a new 4' x 9' painting. There's a certain importance there cause that's where my heart and my mind are now. I'm planning on creating a new show in the fall based on this birch forest. My fathers town Berezne, which mean birch tree in Slavic, which is wear they went, my parents and all the other survivors, or they would have been murdered… For me, that's something dealing with a sense of memory and memorium, in a way, so that's important to me. But the bedroom is playful with the dreams and nightmares you know? That rooms wild.

K: Yeah, I absolutely loved that room.

G: Yeah, so I mean all of them. My old days as an illustrator, I wanted to have something from then, cause it's so overwhelming but its controlled in a way with all of the images, I wanted to give something that represents my life as an illustrator and that's in the Den. I loved Teacher's Pet and Cranium and I wanted to create a room where people could sit on sofas and watch my series and play Cranium.

K: The Den was the one room visitors were not allowed to take pictures in, I'm curious about that.

G: Well we're talking with Disney about that. There's only a few images that Disney has a say on, because with all the title cards I own the originals. Even though Disney owns the intellectual copyrights I'm allowed to use all that stuff for promotion. I think the Skirball is just trying to be safe and not get in trouble.

K: Speaking of the Skirball being safe, of course I noticed there was an absence of your more provocative and sexualized artwork. I heard there was a little bit of censorship that took place.

G: No, no- not a little bit. A lot.

K: Tell me about it.

G: Well, you know, the Skirball is not an Art Museum, it's a Cultural Museum and they work with a committee. So it wasn't necessarily my decision, but it was something I had to accept. I have such a depth in my work and my career that when I knew the more provocative pieces were not allowed we had to create a stronger theme. The way we did it, I could probably have a whole other retrospective and not duplicate anything.

K: I thought it was really interesting and nicely placed that you put the multiples of Toby and the photographs lining the hallway. Usually in a hallway you will see family photos and things, but that you used him as The Keeper of Secrets alongside all the doorways- I wondered if there was some extra symbology that you were trying to convey.

G: Well, the hallway is all about journey. So I wanted to celebrate that in, its own right. It's about being inspired by other places and other cultures. It wasn't finished the night of the opening, but if you go in now you'll see that on each mantle is a retired Toby that has travelled. Each Toby that was up there on the back I had signed and dated where it visited. One Toby went to Eastern Europe, to the towns of my parents. Another Toby went to Argentina, another Toby was in Spain, another Toby was in Russia. So for me that was a way of being able to document that.
And the studio isn't done yet. The studio is going to have more of my sketchbooks. There will be 135 sketchbooks, right now they have 70 displayed.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

Just want to say congrats to Fecal Face's Rachel Ralph for graduating from SFAI with her masters in curatorial studies. Also want to congratulate Alex Ziv who also just got his MFA in painting. Also a high five to the talented Mario Ayala who also just graduated from SFAI as well! --- All super talented artists (thinkers), and we're excited to see what the future holds for them!

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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